Character creation diversity

Hey this game looks amazing for alpha stage! I am personally very interested in seeing this game succeed and from all the footage I watched there was one thing that was really lacking and that was lack of diverse looking characters primarily when it came to seeing different races. Many people I think take a lot of joy in making very different looking characters and in games like WoW and Everquest 2 one of the things that was super appealing was just having so many options to choose from in terms of race and customizing your character to be as unique as possible

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Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

In your opinion, should all game developers make all hair styles available to all races, or should some races have some hairstyles that are unique to them?

All hairstyles should be available to all races. For sure.
I can actually style my hair IRL in any style or color I want.
I am also lucky enough to both have hair and live in a place where there are more than twenty approved hairstyles...

Noaani wrote: »

To me, the answer is that there should be a solid number of hair styles that are common to all races, but each race should have it's own specific few hair styles, including facial hair.

I don't personally think Elves of any sort should be given Dwarf beards as an option, for example.

This is somewhat like asking if orcs should be given the same tail options as Tulnar. Everybody knows orcs don't have tails. There may be one or two obscure settings where Elves have beards, but it is normally pretty well agreed that Elves don't grow facial hair.

If Elves did grow facial hair, I would see no issue with them having the option to style them in Dwarven style braids. Although I imagine that if Elves did have beards to braid, the styles would be even more extravagant than dwarfs. I imagine some of the more refined Dwarves might adopt these hypothetical Elven braids.

George_Black

If you bring me Shrek with prince Charmings hairstyle and expect me to sit there, accept and partake in your delusion you will have another thing coming @Vhaeyne.
Sorry mate but I wont indulge that or the crap that Dygz and the likes are saying.

Personally I am Greek and Vaelune would be closer to that than Kaelar. I am still making a Kaelar character without making up fantasies about King Arthur and the sandal-wearing Greek Knight of the round table.

Bringing in misinformed historical references is another thing that pisses me off.
People mentioned black legionaires and that is why the people making up that society had yellow black white and red skin. That belittles the few black men that rose up above men that looked lesser in comparison, and took their place in the legion. They did so by being extraordinary and not because they happened to populate an imaginary spectrum of different coloured Romans.

The first unifier of Japan made Yasuke a retainer. Does that mean that Japan had black Japanese or does it actually mean that Yasuke was African man whose physical strength impressed the Japanese ruler?

Speaking of King Arthur...
Djimon Hounsou, the actor, cast for Sir Bedivere. Tokenism character..

Morgan Freeman in 1997 Robin Hood? Now that's a character in which the writers gave quality.

And before anyone mentions the original occupants of Britain being of dark colour, stop there. They didnt look like that by the time you got your medieval english, which now you have the Kaelars looking similar to.

And let's go to another tokenism feature, this time in AC Odyssey. There is a difference between sunburned and black ye? Yet in that game I saw sooooo many black npcs that it was immersion breaking. There werent any black people in ancient greece. Olive skinned? Whites? Yes.
But not the tokenism of Ubisoft (they included female soldier voices as well on the male looking character models).
If I was ubisoft I would make a mission with Plutarch going to "the land of the most beautiful people on earth, the Ethiopians". We had the ship after all, why not stick with the beautiful truth, instead of making up falso history.
But hey... it's cheaper to satisfy ppl like Dygz with that sort of political trick than to put the effort of developing Ethiopia for a mission.

That is what this topic was about. Developers creating beautiful and distinct human race choices with their glorious differences.

As I said earlier both sides of the argument have pros and cons. Personally I would prefer no skin tone restrictions.
But some, instead of saying "I want to be able to make a black samurai like Yasuke or a black man that achieved Knighthood in Kaelar society, decided to bring their political brainwashing here.

As for elves and dwarves... Well...
I will play a human as I always do, but the entitlement of real life humans is something to behold.
Imagine demanding skin tones for black elves and black dwarves when these fantasy races dont even have our DNA. So you dont have to victimize your self and say "oh God!!! I cant relate to those white ass elves with such limited skin tone choices!!!"

Imagine that... btw we have Nikua in addition to Dwarves.
Wouldnt it make more sense to ask for Dark Elves or Drow instead of wanting to tokenize everything?

George_Black

In other words.. I am against all hairstyles and beards for all.

Vhaeyne

Not going to get into the historical non-sense. We could likely do an eight-hour podcast together discussing how annoying it is that Hollywood likes to change ancient history to express an agenda that is not relevant to the stories it is trying to use. I think it would just be eight-hours of us agreeing.

George Black wrote: »

I will play a human as I always do, but the entitlement of real life humans is something to behold.
Imagine demanding skin tones for black elves and black dwarves when these fantasy races dont even have our DNA. So you dont have to victimize your self and say "oh God!!! I cant relate to those white ass elves with such limited skin tone choices!!!"

My problem is that I don't like to be limited for just lore.

Here is a major spoiler for Ashes... The lore is not going to be shit compared to human history.

I agree that it is annoying when people inject people into movies about the past because they are trying to push a diversity agenda.

That is not what this is about for me. It is about me being able to have all the reasonable options I can to make a character. This does not have to shatter the lore of Verra or any other fantasy setting.

I made an example that it is very likely that Elves could exist on the equator and have dark skin to show for it. This does not seem like a major breach in lore. It just seems like what happens when people live in a place that has more sunlight.

If I want to make a pirate elf. I am going to make them with a tan becoming of someone from the equator.
If I want to make an elf from a northern forest. I will likely make him white.

George Black wrote: »

Imagine that... btw we have Nikua in addition to Dwarves.
Wouldnt it make more sense to ask for Dark Elves or Drow instead of wanting to tokenize everything?

I would love real Drow. I just think that is a major ask. Personally, I think it is easier just to give the elf races we have all the other sub-race skin colors and call it a day.

Remember, fantasy lore is not important. We do not look to fantasy lore to gain valuable lessons about our past or ourselves. Human history is important. We learn so much from human history, and there is a massive value loss when we change it.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I can actually style my hair IRL in any style or color I want.

This is actually not true - not unless you count wigs. There is no hair type that can take every hairstyle.

If you do a google image search for "extreme hairstyles", and think about the hair needed for the first few lines of hairstyles, you will probably see what I mean.

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I can actually style my hair IRL in any style or color I want.

This is actually not true - not unless you count wigs. There is no hair type that can take every hairstyle.

If you do a google image search for "extreme hairstyles", and think about the hair needed for the first few lines of hairstyles, you will probably see what I mean.

Why wouldn't we include weaves and wigs though. Does something in my HIGH FANTASY setting stop me from being able to make those? Does my deity frown upon fake hair? I want a new deity if so.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I can actually style my hair IRL in any style or color I want.

This is actually not true - not unless you count wigs. There is no hair type that can take every hairstyle.

If you do a google image search for "extreme hairstyles", and think about the hair needed for the first few lines of hairstyles, you will probably see what I mean.

Lol, I guess I do count wigs then.
Why would a world full of magic not have wigs? I am sure a magically enhanced wig would be crazy compared to the "extreme hairstyles" seen on google...

Volgaire

I doubt this is the place for this kind of discussion, I am all for having lore correct features however all races so far have two cultures, one of which enables darker skin, for example the Dunir live in or near mountains so their skin would probably tend to be on the paler side but the Nikua seem to live in more tropical climates which means darker more tanned tones, if you are Dunir you can just say that one of your parents or great great grandparents was Nikua and you have the desired skin colour which seems logical in lore terms same goes for the two human cultures/sub-races.

Personally I would love to be able to play a drow like race but if the devs don't plan on including one I am not going to ask for unrealistic things like forest elves having white/gray tones for skin unless albinos are a thing.

There was never any reason for this discussion to turn to racism and such, remember that ultimately this is a game and I assume we all want to have fun playing it, real life problems especially ones as sensitive as this should be kept private or on apprpriate boards/forums.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I can actually style my hair IRL in any style or color I want.

This is actually not true - not unless you count wigs. There is no hair type that can take every hairstyle.

If you do a google image search for "extreme hairstyles", and think about the hair needed for the first few lines of hairstyles, you will probably see what I mean.

Lol, I guess I do count wigs then.
Why would a world full of magic not have wigs? I am sure a magically enhanced wig would be crazy compared to the "extreme hairstyles" seen on google...

If you count wigs, should they not be a cosmetic you place as your characters head slot item?

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I can actually style my hair IRL in any style or color I want.

This is actually not true - not unless you count wigs. There is no hair type that can take every hairstyle.

If you do a google image search for "extreme hairstyles", and think about the hair needed for the first few lines of hairstyles, you will probably see what I mean.

Lol, I guess I do count wigs then.
Why would a world full of magic not have wigs? I am sure a magically enhanced wig would be crazy compared to the "extreme hairstyles" seen on google...

If you count wigs, should they not be a cosmetic you place as your characters head slot item?

Im ok with cash shop hair styles especially if they go outside the games originally intended look and feel of the game. I don't think they could be head slot though. You can wear a hat and a wig you know?

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

If you count wigs, should they not be a cosmetic you place as your characters head slot item?

I would prefer not to have the wig take up a cosmetic slot. There are many MMOs where you can still see hair under the head cosmetic. I think that is the case for some head cosmetics in Ashes.

I don't care how you fluff it. If my fake skin and hair color is some kind of long last spell like "Disguise Self" from D&D or whatever. As long as the result is that I get more options.

HazardNumberSeven

I'm curious what skin colours non-human races will have. Will we be able to colour our elves in light shades of blue/purple/pink, or darker tones similar to dark elves? That would be cool. Elves in fantasy tend to have a bit more fantastical skin and hair colours, especially in d&d.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

If you count wigs, should they not be a cosmetic you place as your characters head slot item?

I would prefer not to have the wig take up a cosmetic slot. There are many MMOs where you can still see hair under the head cosmetic. I think that is the case for some head cosmetics in Ashes.

I don't care how you fluff it. If my fake skin and hair color is some kind of long last spell like "Disguise Self" from D&D or whatever. As long as the result is that I get more options.

As I said earlier, I am not against options, but I am also not against wanting to stick to a games lore (not that we have any idea what the racial lore in this regard is in Ashes).

What this says to me is that my ultimate system for it would be to restrict racial appearances based on what the lore of the game says - if at all - and then provide any other look via other means, such as cosmetics, illusions, or what ever else.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

As I said earlier, I am not against options, but I am also not against wanting to stick to a games lore (not that we have any idea what the racial lore in this regard is in Ashes).

What this says to me is that my ultimate system for it would be to restrict racial appearances based on what the lore of the game says - if at all - and then provide any other look via other means, such as cosmetics, illusions, or what ever else.

Right, but from a mechanical point of view, it makes no sense to take those options away from the character creator.

The result would be the same. Races with "Unnatural" skin/hair/eye colors.

Cypher

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Lets take Dygz as an example here. He has me on ignore, so it's easy.

Now, if the game has a race that doesn't allow for white hair, he will have to get creative in order to make a character of that race that he is happy with.

That is a situation where restrictions in a character creator leads to more creativity.

I don't think he or I would take it as a challenge to be more creative. We just get annoyed because we have an image in our head of what type of character we want to make and a game that does not allow it.

This 100%

CROW3

Cypher wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

We just get annoyed because we have an image in our head of what type of character we want to make and a game that does not allow it.

This 100%

Exactly. It's the same argument as with the Female Armor thread. Have a broad spectrum and know that there will be a general bell curve of skin tones / hairstyles actually used by players on a race by race basis.

Conrad

HazardNumberSeven wrote: »

I'm curious what skin colours non-human races will have. Will we be able to colour our elves in light shades of blue/purple/pink, or darker tones similar to dark elves? That would be cool. Elves in fantasy tend to have a bit more fantastical skin and hair colours, especially in d&d.

The skin colours should not go over the top. BDO allows that and many people run around with some abominations

Cypher

Conrad wrote: »

HazardNumberSeven wrote: »

I'm curious what skin colours non-human races will have. Will we be able to colour our elves in light shades of blue/purple/pink, or darker tones similar to dark elves? That would be cool. Elves in fantasy tend to have a bit more fantastical skin and hair colours, especially in d&d.

The skin colours should not go over the top. BDO allows that and many people run around with some abominations

What do you consider "over the top" though? Blue and Green on humans for example is where I would say it's too far. But I think Humans (and honestly Elves or Dwarves also) should be able to have any naturally occurring skin tone we have on Earth today. Do whatever you want on Tulnar or Orcs.

Vhaeyne

Cypher wrote: »

What do you consider "over the top" though? Blue and Green on humans for example is where I would say it's too far. But I think Humans (and honestly Elves or Dwarves also) should be able to have any naturally occurring skin tone we have on Earth today. Do whatever you want on Tulnar or Orcs.

I agree that blue and green humans is a bit over the top.

Mainly because humans do not gain access to those skin colors from normal means.
Skin color is mostly a function of ancestry and proximity to the equator.

There are have been modern documented humans with blue skin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T58YRgdrljM

I have heard there were documented cases of people having green skin in the Middle Ages, but that was before photography and cannot be confirmed.

I am not really asking for these skin colors. I am just saying they do seem to be possible.

CROW3

Blue/green skin reminds me of the old Shoal Elves and Sea Elves. I think from Dragonlance’s influence on pnp. Cool, but there may be a line in the sand for lore.

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